In Dynasty Trading, Curtis Patrick journals moves from his own dynasty fantasy football leagues.
I’ve been a trade-hound this month. On the low side, I’ll estimate I’ve sent something like 50 offers across 11 leagues, and that’s not including a flurry of activity in my latest dynasty startup.
Dynasty trading is essential to finding sustained success. Trading can help you address an injury or a retirement. Trading can help you shore up a problem position for a stretch run at the title in-season. Trading can also help you position your roster for optimal execution in rookie drafts.
If you want to be in position to win most years, be a purposeful and active trader.
Dynasty Trading: Rebalancing your Assets
For this piece, I’m highlighting a roster where I want to rebalance my assets. You can address roster balance issues via your rookie drafts, but sometimes your desired players don’t make it to your spot(s). I like to try to address roster balance issues before the draft when possible, because only one manager is guaranteed to get their desired player in the draft, and that’s the holder of the 1.01.
Let’s review the league situation and the deals I made this month to rebalance this roster. I think you’ll find some practical takeaways and be able to make the same kind of deals in your league, even if you don’t particularly like the specific deals I chose to make.
Situation
Established in 2016, Elite Lemonade (it’s a long story) is a challenging league that includes industry members such as Scott Barrett, Ben Gretch, T.J. Calkins, Mike Beers, and Jen Ryan. One of the highest-volume best ball players in the world every year, Matt Thomson, is also in the league. Over the first five years I’ve collected two titles (2017, 2020) and one runner-up (2018).
League Settings
12-team, 1QB, PPR, 1.5 TE Premium
Key Assets
QB: Josh Allen, Kyler Murray
RB: Christian McCaffrey, Miles Sanders, Josh Jacobs, Clyde Edwards-Helaire, David Montgomery, James Robinson
WR: Davante Adams, Michael Thomas, Mike Evans, Terry McLaurin
TE: Mike Gesicki
2021 Rookie picks: 2.01, 2.02, 2.12, 3.04, 3.12, 4.12
Important to Know
Our rookie draft takes place before the NFL Draft in this league
Goals
- Trade away excessive RB depth
- Acquire early rookie picks
- Inject youth into WR corps
- Add more upside at TE
Strategy
Target managers with poor RB depth and/or an abundance of rookie picks
Trade Effort
Dynasty trading is mostly about effort and communication. Don’t depend on other managers to approach you with ideas to solve your roster problems or meet your roster goals. Be proactive and evaluate the other rosters in your league. It’s (usually) pretty easy to gauge what other managers will think their needs are and you should send offers that meet those needs.
In this league, I’ve sent 12 offers this month. The results:
- Offers sent: 12
- Rejected: 6
- Expired: 4
- Accepted: 2
- Conversion rate: 16.7 percent
